Speaking of constructive debate in the media

[Trigger warning for bigotry]

Have I mentioned lately that my local newspaper blows chunks? :Beevis Laugh: I stole that from the first comment on a thread at the Syracuse Post Standard's website.

Last October [TW: violence, including sexual assault] I wrote them a letter about how I thought it was kinda uncool to allow public, largely unmoderated comments on articles about criminal acts. They basically told me that if I wanted to spend 24 hours a day helping them moderate their website, they'd be willing to listen. I passed, BTW.

Now they've got this new-ish feature where they highlight a selected edgy quote of the day, giving it prominent placement on the paper's website.

Some of the latest hits include:

Russian people like vodka ha ha ha..

Gay marriage is pointless because I hate my wife or some such nonsense.

Global warming is a hoax blah blah blah

You're only pointing out homophobia because you're a bunch of queers.

The Tea Party people are not Whack O's[sic]

It's like that one USDA lady that might eat white children, I guess, in that it's all debatable. Huge platforms for everybody! Free speech, equality, and freedom pie for all! Oppression for none! Except maybe for those whiny queers and drunk Russians, amirite?

I understand that "my" paper highlights all sorts of opinions, including ooga-booga librul ones. That's not my point.

My point is that I'm a tired, tired, intellectual. Call me an elitist, but I really do think that some ideas are better than others. Like, there are observations, from which one can infer (debatable) facts, which, in conjunction with logic one can use to put forth and defend a position. It doesn't even need to be a position I agree with, it just has to follow some sort of internally-consistent logic based on some small aspect of pseudoreality.

Maybe it's the professor in me, but I'm pretty sure anyone can just make up random hateful shit that has no basis in anything (aside from, perhaps, other equally irrational and hateful shit). It takes skill to take and defend a worthwhile position. It takes effort, even practice.

Guess whose job it is to distinguish between making shit up and making a good faith effort? Among others, teachers and journalists (say, newspapery-types). If folks in these professions don't actually examine arguments, then those professions become meaningless.

There are massive consequences to not recognizing that there's a difference between those two types of rhetoric. Guess who bears the brunt of blurring the lines between unhinged hate speech and semi-reasoned debate? Me and every other underprivileged person in society. But really, what do you think?